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AUTHOR OF THE MUSICAL AMATEUR, SCUM O' THE EARTH
AND OTHER POEMS, ROMANTIC AMERICA, ETC.

"People who are nobly happy constitute the power, the beauty
and the foundation of the state."

JEAN FINOT: The Science of Happiness.

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1914

COPYRIGHT, 1914 BY ROBERT HAVEN SCHAUFFLER

TO

MY WIFE

FOREWORD

This is a guide book to joy. It is for the use of the sad, the bored,
the tired, anxious, disheartened and disappointed. It is for the use
of all those whose cup of vitality is not brimming over.

The world has not yet seen enough of joy. It bears the reputation of
an elusive sprite with finger always at lip bidding farewell. In
certain dark periods, especially in times of international warfare, it
threatens to vanish altogether from the earth. It is then the first
duty of all peaceful folk to find and hold fast to joy, keeping it in
trust for their embattled brothers.

Even if this were not their duty as citizens of the world, it would be
their duty as patriots. For Jean Finot is right in declaring that
"people who are nobly happy constitute the power, the beauty and the
foundation of the state."

This book is a manual of enthusiasm the power which drives the
world and of those kinds of exuberance (physical, mental and
spiritual) which can make every moment of every life worth living. It
aims to show how to get the most joy not only from traveling hopefully
toward one's goal, but also from the goal itself on arrival there. It
urges sound business methods in conducting that supreme business, the
investment of one's vitality.

It would show how one may find happiness all alone with his better
self, his 'Auto Comrade' an accomplishment well nigh lost in this
crowded age. It would show how the gospel of exuberance, by offering
the joys of hitherto unsuspected power to the artist and his audience,
bids fair to lift the arts again to the lofty level of the Periclean
age. It would show the so called "common" man or woman how to develop
that creative sympathy which may make him a 'master by proxy,' and
thus let him know the conscious happiness of playing an essential part
in the creation of works of genius. In short, the book tries to show
how the cup of joy may not only be kept full for one's personal use,
but may also be made hospitably to brim over for others.

To the Atlantic Monthly thanks are due for permission to reprint
chapters I, III and IV; to the North American Review , for chapter
VIII; and to the Century , for chapters V, VI, IX and X.

R. H. S.

GEEENBUSH, MASS.

August, 1914.

CONTENTS

I. A DEFENSE OF JOY

II. THE BRIMMING CUP

III. ENTHUSIASM

IV. A CHAPTER OF ENTHUSIASMS

V. THE AUTO COMRADE

VI. VIM AND VISION

VII. PRINTED JOY

VIII. THE JOYFUL HEART FOR POETS

IX. THE JOYOUS MISSION OF MECHANICAL MUSIC

X. MASTERS BY PROXY

THE JOYFUL HEART

I

A DEFENSE OF JOY

Joy is such stuff as the hinges of Heaven's doors are made of. So our
fathers believed. So we supposed in childhood. Since then it has
become the literary fashion to oppose this idea. The writers would
have us think of joy not as a supernal hinge, but as a pottle of hay,
hung by a crafty creator before humanity's asinine nose. The donkey is
thus constantly incited to unrewarded efforts. And when he arrives at
the journey's end he is either defrauded of the hay outright, or he
dislikes it, or it disagrees with him.

Robert Louis Stevenson warns us that "to travel hopefully is a better
thing than to arrive," beautifully portraying the emptiness and
illusory character of achievement... Continue reading book >>